


Not All Can Rise

by PTchan



Series: Captain America Movie Marathon [2]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Ambiguous?, Angst, Captain America - The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Chaos!Neki - Freeform, Gen, Haise - Freeform, Monologue?, movies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 19:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6672796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PTchan/pseuds/PTchan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kaneki Ken IS the Winter Soldier, and Captain America never woke up in the 21st Century.</p><p>(Or did he?)</p><p>Sequel to Even Heroes Fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not All Can Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand Civil War is HERE!!  
> GAAH I NEED TO WATCH IT!!
> 
> But before I do I am posting this fic ^w^

Haise wasn’t really one for cinemas.

He’d choose a good book over a movie any day, really. But when Saiko suddenly seized him from behind one Sunday morning, burying her face in his back just as he was about to flip the pancakes over for breakfast and practically begged him to take her to the movies, he immediately agreed.

An actual request from Saiko was rare enough to warrant it. Besides, it was their day off, after all, and it’s been awhile since they had any actual semblance of team bonding. So about half-an-hour after dragging Urie away from the general direction of the training room after breakfast, Haise and his quids found themselves seated on the less than comfortable seats at the cinema, two large tubs of popcorn split between them.

Feeling the scratchy material digging into his back even through his coat, Haise couldn’t help but feel just a bit nostalgic…

Until the movie began, that is.

“Hey Saiko…? What movie are we watching again?” Haise couldn’t help bus ask, his heart thumping just a bit faster as the name Steve Rogers flashed across the subtitles on the screen, the familiar face of the actor somehow stirring something in the recesses of his mind.

“Hah?” the girl hummed through a mouthful of popcorn, raising an incredulous brow at him.

Ah. Haise thought, It must be pretty popular then. He grinned bashfully.

Saiko simply rolled her eyes, mouth forming into a pout. “I told you before Maman! It’s _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_!! It’s like, only the most talked about movie of the year!!”

Captain America. The words resounded in his mind, images of a train surging through snowy terrain and a figure falling, fading into the large expanse of white, barely slipping through another’s fingers, flashing before his eyes.

_**“Besides, Steve Rogers kinda reminds me of you a bit”** _

Almost without warning, Haise scrambled out of his seat, mumbling some half-hearted excuse as he ran out of the darkened room, his lungs constricting painfully in his chest, the rattling of chains resounding in his mind.

He needed air.

**_(Steve Rogers was given the power to protect the people he cared about, not to potentially destroy them._ **

**_But even then, he still he couldn't protect his most precious person.)_ **

He never got to watch the movie in the end.

**~_~_~**

Do you know that weird phenomenon where you never notice something until it’s brought to your attention only for you to realize that it’s actually everywhere?

Cause that was what Haise was feeling right now, on the train heading back to the 1st ward with Mutsuki after some investigative work in the 10th.

They’d been on the train for five minutes and they’d passed through at least three Captain America billboards, not even mentioning the posters and trailers. He had to wonder how he could’ve possibly missed it, and he was starting to regret running out on the movie.

Tooru had rushed after him then, his visible eye running over him worriedly, and Haise tried his best to assure him that everything was alright. That the big screen just made him a bit dizzy, the dim room making him a bit claustrophobic.

Mutsuki didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t say anything and returned to the movie when Haise told him to go back becsuse they didn’t need to waste their hard-earned cash for an old man like him. (Not that he was any older than them really.)

But what really made him wish he actually stayed to watch it was Shirazu’s impressed words when he and Saiko talked about the movie afterwards.

_“He couldn’t remember him, but in the end the power of friendship still prevailed!”_

_“You’re actually kinda sappy, huh Shiragin”_

_“S-Shut up!! S’Snot like there’s anything wrong with that!!”_

The power of friendship… prevailing over lost memories…

He wonders if he has anyone like that...

_**“Rabbits die of loneliness you know."** _

 

In the end he never had the opportunity to actually see it on the big screen, with the Torso and Nutrcracker cases keeping him busy.

So when the movie finally came out in DVD stores a few months later, Haise didn’t hesitate to buy one.

But it merely collected dust at the corner of his room anyway.

**~_~_~**

_**(“Who the Hell is Bucky?”)** _

It was ironic that Kaneki was watching this now, two days before the scheduled raid of Rue Island. He didn’t even realize he’d brought the movie with him when he left the chateu after regaining his memories.

And it is ironic.

The Winter Soldier was Bucky Barnes.

Bucky Barned was alive. Amnesiac and Brainwashed and a weapon used by the very organization that nearly killed him. It brought a smirk to Kaneki’s lips, bitter.

Hide once likened him to Steve Rogers, but oh how wrong he was.

If anything, Hide was Steve. Captain America even. Bright as the sun, always there for him, brave and righteous and cunning…

And Kaneki was broken. Always had been. Small and weak and self-centered.

Weak. You couldn’t protect him.

**_“The Man on the Bridge…. I knew him”_ **

The Winter Soldier stated, and Kaneki had to laugh when he was wiped for his efforts, reminding the half-ghoul of his own experience, recognizing an old friend and punished with a bullet through his brain.

 _What would Hide think of this movie?_ He wonders. The blond would probably love the action scenes. Would gush at the not-quite-there romance. Would gape when the Winter Soldier’s face was finally revealed.

The thought, this time, relaxed a smile on Kaneki’s face. But it was short lived.

Because in the end, Hide was dead. His flesh and blood merely nourishment now, barely traceable within his body.

**~_~_~**

_**“I’m not gonna fight ya”** _

_**“Cause I’m with you till the end of the line.”** _

 

In the previous movie, Steve Rogers let Bucky Barnes fall, and soon followed after him.

But still he woke up. He woke up all alone in a world he didn’t belong in. Only to find out his most precious person was alive and forced to suffer in ways no one should ever be subjected to.

And oh how Kaneki wants to cry.

He was The Winter Soldier.

He knew everything that once loyal soldier had been through. So much pain that he had no choice but to change, to forget, to sleep just to get through it all.

But his Captain America never woke up. He never got to say _**“I knew him”** _ because _he_ is no longer there.

Kaneki wonders what the soldier would do now that HYDRA was anything but gone and his programming slowly breaking down.

He has an idea.

Standing in front of his own Grim Reaper, the man he called ‘Father’ at some point in time, he wonders if this could be called revenge: the Winter Soldier seeking vengeance on all the people who caused him pain.

But sadly, Kaneki did not experience pain. His dreams have been sweet. Even if they were all based on countless lies.

And in the end, he has no Captain America in this world. And he thinks that for the Winter Soldier, such a world is meaningless.


End file.
